The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-04-17
PRTMA DONNAS.
Some of the Requirements Necessary
to Make Great Singers

NEW YORK, April 16.-One Of the an
Gent philosophers maintains that the pri-
mary requirements of humanity are food.
clothing and music Their necessity to man
is in the order given. | think he must have
many adherents to his belief among the
fashionable world of our day. In every as
sembly there appears to be a vocalist ready,
waiting for the slightest hint from the hos
tess to display his or her talents, to the tenn
pOrary suspension of all other interests. Oc-
casionally one hears "a very good song, very
well sung" from the lips of these aspiring be
ings, but usually, if the auditors
were really TO express their actual
state of feelings after one of these
crude ''society" performances, the
cry they would enunciate would be basta!
baSta and not encore. or bis : bis. One NAV
sing as one likes, if one guards the seclusion
of ones own lyric apartment; but when one
has the temerity to face an assembly among
whom there may be critics of thirty years
training like myself, one must be prepared
to be looked upon as-well, let me say,
bluntly, as a fool; for only fools
rush in where angels fear to
tread Thirty years ago l lived in Paris
in house belonging to SignOr GardOni, and
this most delicious tenore di grazia of his day
occupied with his family a suite of rooms IN
the same building. | was always q welcome
guest ia their splendidly furnished salons,
and what company | met there The
great contraIto, Nine Albini, the soprani.
Pence, Marie Cable. Miolan CarvalhO; the
composers, Rossini, Auber, Ambrose
Thomas. These are only few among the
grand celebrities with whom held converse
concerning the art divine of melody. What
heard from them sufficiently explains the
scarcity of really fine singers. Magnificent
| health is the first requirement of vocalist
| life-should be to the singer but as a toy with
which an infant plays Senior Garcia has
well expressed the amazing respiratory
| power of the skilled vocalist, who can hold
! a lighted candle before his mouth and sing
| his most vehement morceauX without caus-
| ing the flame to be extinguished or even to
waver. The slightest disturbance of the
| flame would show that too much air was be-
ing expended. That singer only is an &C
| complished artist who can so control the
lung expiration that the least possible
amount of air sufficient to cause vibration is
poured continuously but imperceptibly upon
! the vocal organs. Some singers whom
| have heard puff plainly enough to blow out
Mount Vesuvius.
With good lungs capacity, right method
of breathing and healthy condition Of the
vibrating element, something else is re-
quired of the singer: it is the FLOWERS on the
| lips" of which all Italian music masters
| speak. Jagielski describes this quality of
voice direction as kissing the words as they
pass How often we hear ambitious young
ladies shrek. Robert, TOT que jaime" as
! if they were addressing an appeal for mercy
to an executioner, not an avowal Of passion
to a lover.
Facial expression is another requisite of
| the true artist. 1t should be of piece with
the emotion of song. When the muscles
of the face and mouth convey the idea of
agony, vocalized words of joy fail painfully
of the desired effect She would be a sorry
! specimen OF the ballet dancer who would
facially betray to us that it hurts her pedal
extremities when she stands on her toes and
| the human lark who sings here below should
| at least simulate the extatic happiness of the
luscious voiced- wonder who scars upon the
wing. OLIVE LOGAN.